Microsoft Surface Pro 3 Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 23, 2014 3:55 AM ESTBattery Life
Microsoft made no sacrifice in battery capacity in pursuit of Surface Pro 3's thin chassis design. The new tablet features an integrated 42Wh battery just like the previous two models. Charging duties are handled by an external 31W charger with a brand new magnetic connector. Microsoft never seemed to get a good MagSafe clone working in the previous models, so Surface Pro 3 abandons the previous design entirely in favor of something a bit more sensible.
The new connector no longer looks like an oversized MagSafe connector, and instead features a thin plastic insert that mates with the charge port on Surface Pro 3. Charge time hasn't changed, you can fully charge the device in around 2.62 hours:
The device-side connector features 40 pins but you only need 12 of them to charge the device. The remaining pins are used for Gigabit Ethernet, USB, DisplayPort (up to 4096 x 2304) and audio. Microsoft seems hell bent on avoiding Thunderbolt at all costs so instead of embracing the standard it has created a custom alternative of its own doing. The benefit to Microsoft's connector is it can obviously deliver more power than Thunderbolt can, the downside is that it can't send PCIe and thus you don't get support for any ultra high bandwidth external storage devices. I still would rather see Microsoft implement Thunderbolt as there's at least an existing ecosystem built around that but here we are three generations into Surface and if we haven't seen it by now I don't think we're ever going to.
The supplied power adapter includes a USB charge port capable of delivering 1A at 5V.
As Surface Pro 3 is designed to be both a laptop and a tablet I've run it through both our Windows laptop battery life tests and our tablet battery life tests.
Laptop Battery Life
As a laptop, Surface Pro 3 delivers comparable battery life to other optimized Haswell ULT designs. I threw in Sony's Vaio Pro 13 into the mix because it has a similar sized battery (37Wh vs. 42Wh) and is one of the most power efficient Windows Ultrabook platforms on the market. Surface Pro 3 manages to deliver similar battery life, which means it's a little less power efficient but the two are within the same range at least.
Compared to Surface Pro 1 and 2, Surface Pro 3 at worst delivers similar battery life and at best increases range on a single charge by up to 20%. We're looking at 3.75 hours - 7.6 hours of notebook usage on a single charge depending on usage.
It's worth noting that there's a substantial advantage in battery life if we look at the 13-inch MacBook Air running OS X. I only mention this because of Microsoft's insistence on comparing Surface Pro 3 to Apple's popular line of notebooks.
Tablet Battery Life
Tablet workloads are going to be far more display power bound than anything else. Here we see 7.58 - 8.03 hours of continuous usage, a slight regression compared to Surface Pro 2. Video playback remains more power hungry than web browsing, which is something I've noted in previous tablet-evaluations of Intel's Core silicon. I don't believe Intel's Core processors are very optimized for video decode power consumption. If anything is going to change with the move to Broadwell and Core M I suspect video decode power may be it.
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darwinosx - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
Exactly. It's a lousy laptop and an even worse tablet.ESC2000 - Saturday, July 5, 2014 - link
Have you actually, you know, purchased the surface pro 3 and.... used it? I'm assuming so if you're making such bold claims. I own one and it's great... Amazing improvement over the first gen which I also own.And I have owned an mba before and it was fine but the surface is better overall imo.
savaytse66 - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
Well, this is the device basket in which I'm throwing all of my eggs. My mobile devices are currently a 2006 Dell 17" laptop running Windows 7 and an HP Touchpad running CM10.1. I've been waiting to upgrade until the right "hybrid" device came along, and this is the one I'm banking on, albeit the i7/512 model.My usage is a little atypical. My work requires me to occasionally spend time on construction sites creating sketches and recording measurements. I am hoping this device will allow me to skip the full size (24" x 36" or larger) architectural prints and the paper sketch pad and simply carry everything on the SP3. After I finish on site, I am often going back to a hotel room for the night, or spending the next few hours in an airport/airplane. I make heavy use of AutoCAD, and being able to make tweaks in the field, or even the hotel, should be amazingly helpful. I don't expect to be at full productivity, but then again, even on a typical laptop, running AutoCAD on one small screen will never be as productive as running on 2 or 3 large desktop displays.
In theory, the SP3 should be perfect for me. I do worry about the batter life though. I suspect that I might need to pick up an external battery pack for those times I'm on site without access to a wall outlet. Time will tell, I guess. I also think about general durability. I am generally not on fully active construction sites with lots of dirt and dust, but I will be in environments that are not office-like. So we'll see if there is some sort of rugged case or screen protection available for those scenarios.
All in all, I am really looking forward to getting my SP3 in August. I just wish they would release it already since I could really use it mid-July. But I've waited this long, so what's another couple of weeks.
Thanks for the nice review. This is the one I've been waiting for, and it didn't disappoint.
Papa - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
I'd make sure you can run AutoCad on a HD4400 smoothly. Nothing worse than dragging etc and getting lag, especially in more 3D spaces.savaytse66 - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
Make no mistake, my production machine is, and always will be my desktop workstation. My mobile solution now for MINOR AutoCAD work is Remote Desktop or TeamViewer, oftentimes tethered to my cell phone, so if running it natively, even on integrated graphics, isn't more smooth than that, then I'm in trouble!Since I'm mostly in a 2D workspace, I'm pretty confident.
Drumsticks - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
Additionally, I'm 99% sure they confirmed that the i7 model is a 4650U with HD5000 graphics, which maybe helps a bit. TDP limited sure, but hopefully you see something.Drumsticks - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
Edit: I has good charts skills 4 readingxerandin - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
It doesn't have to run well on an HD4400, because the model he chose is an HD5000.MonkeyPaw - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
Considering how quickly the Surface line charges, you could probably just spam charge it in your vehicle or find an outlet at lunch and get through your work day.Shaedo - Tuesday, July 22, 2014 - link
Might be too late for you but you're describing the Q704 by Fujitsu which is equivalent specs to a Surface pro 3, came out a long time ago and most importantly is dust and water proof.http://www.shopfujitsu.com/store/mobileconfigurato...